New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-02-09
THE uaTTHEVS CASE.

I'm making public the facts in the Matthew'S
case. the Senate has placed the President III
most humiliating position, or, to speak more
accurately, has enabled the public TO see III
what humlia position the President mas
nlaced himself. For about year the Presi-
dent has now kept this local politician in tat
office. in defiance of successive reflections by
the Senate, and in disregard of the wishes OF
nearly all citizens of the District of Columbia,
who, the Senate states, Opposed his confirma-
ton with substantial unanimity without re-
gard to color, politics or occupation" The
President has pretended that he insisted upon
this nomination because the opposition OF cit1-
zens of the District had largely subsidized. but the
Senate shows that in this plea he Is not honest,
for he made the second appointment or Mat
thews Immediately after the adjournment or
the Senate last August, and only month after
the first rejection. when there had been no time
for the opposltlon to subsde, and moreover, the
Senate declares. it has not in fact subsidized 10
this day. Naturally men will ask with some sur
prise how it has come to pass that the President
has put himself into so peculiar predicameht.
Again the only answer made is dishonest
subterfuge. The President pretcnds that "he
desires in this way to tender just recognition
and good faith toward coOred fellow citizens"
But the Senate, with cruelty which is justified
in this case, shows that the President, in order
to appoint Matthews, "an obscure partisan who
had never been a slave. and who therefore
represented the enfranchised race only by the
accident of color" actually turned out of the
same Office Frederick Douglass, the most
distinguished representative of the coored
Lcl n
slave, and that just recognition OF the
enfranchised, If honestly desired by the Presi-
dent, would have caused the retention OF
d Ouglass in the Office to which Matthews, the
obscure Democratic partisan, has been so per-
sstently appointed. Of the conduct OF Mr..
Douglass in that Office there had been no COM
plant. Not o person asked for his removal,
except those who were hungry for his place, or
those citizens of the District whose prejudice
against any cOlored man leads them to object
equally to Matthews.
In this case it is clear that the President has
no honest excuse for his action. lie would
have been far less Inundated in public estima-
ton if he had frankly avowed from the outset
his wish to reward colOred Democratic poll
tician. For Matthews has no other claim TO
consideration 1t is q notorious fact that he,
in disObedience of the orders of the President,
and In violation of the Civil Service principles
upon which the President pretends to
place such stress, spent time during the
last Congressional campaign in electioneer-
ing and pipe laying for the defeat
of the Republican candidate for Congress in the
Troy district. The President not only wInks at
this violation of his rules, but even rewards it
openly by insisting cnce more upon the appoint
ment Of this obscure partisan in place of Mr.
Douglass. 1t Is plain that he sacrifices all his
Civil Service principles in order to reward a
partisan. At the same time he insults the col
ored race by turning out its most widely hon.
Ored representative and substituting person
whose only title to public notice is the fact that
he has done political jobs for the Democratic
Marty